Pairing Comedy and Hollywood

Jeff Howard and BJ Bales bring the kind of conversation that feels part comedy set, part Hollywood war story, and part masterclass in creative survival. The two comedians and actors break down how they met through indie films in LA, what it actually takes to stay in the entertainment game, and why talent alone is never enough without proximity, persistence, and the right people around you. They also pull back the curtain on Big Smits Entertainment, their production company built out of necessity, frustration, and a desire to make comedy on their own terms. A major focus of the episode is their upcoming dark comedy Suburban Psycho, a Charleston-rooted R-rated buddy comedy that represents their first major swing as producers, writers, and performers. At its core, this conversation is about protecting your creative voice, taking the long road, and building something real when the traditional system stops making sense.

BJ Bales
Jeff Howard
Suburban Psycho

Thanks for listening
Host: Jack Moran

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, I'm BJ Bales. This is Jeff Howard. We're happy to be on the Shaking Hands podcast here with Jack. One disclaimer: I get migraines, so I wear these. I don't think I'm cool.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I sweat a lot. You're going to see that and be prepared for it. I'm okay. I'm not unhealthy. I'm just very, very warm. All right, let's dive in.

Jack Moran 0:16

Welcome to Shaking Hands, where we provide the platform for entrepreneurs and thought leaders to share their stories in order to hopefully influence others to get out of the rat race and chase their own dreams. If you have any recommendations for guests or questions that you want to be asked, please don't hesitate to reach out. Anyways, if you enjoy the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe, and share in order to keep the podcast growing. Otherwise, I'm your host, Jack Moran, and this is Shaking Hands.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Shut the fuck up, man. Oh man, yeah, they'll they'll do anything. Those Germans, dude. Those Germans don't give a fuck. Most most places in Europe, the TV is titties and dicks and here, and nons and all kinds of stuff. They're used to it. They're fucking pussies here, man. Sell so much more stuff if we could show dicks.

Jack Moran 1:11

Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Just because of the culture. It's a cultural thing. Love the shop. Yeah, that's why there's nude beaches in Europe and not here. It's just feels exotic, too. Yeah, yeah. That's a guess.

Jack Moran 1:21

What are the rules on uh TV?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Like you can show full frontal and stuff. You can show pretty much anything. It just has to be the right network, the right. But you can show ass you can't show asshole, you know, like things like that.

Jack Moran 1:34

Really? You can show full frontal on TV. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

You can show they had a dick in every single episode of Gemstones, their last season. A full frontal dick. Walter Goggins was had his own.

Jack Moran 1:46

Hold on, what? On just like regular TV channels? Oh okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Oh, the big five like over there. Oh dude. This is not like TNT. Yeah. Uh they could probably show some dicks on TNT these days. I don't know. Two.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Maybe. But the big five like over the air, I don't think you can do anything.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

No, you can't do shit. Because they survive on the colour. It's streamers. Streamers, it's pretty much anyone's game on a streamer other than X-rated stuff. You can't show like a dick going into someone, but they can be in proximity to each other.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

But you can face fuck someone. You can face fucking.

Jack Moran 2:24

Are you from South Carolina too?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

No, man. I'm from Kansas City.

Jack Moran 2:28

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah. I grew up there, lived in LA for a bit, and then how'd you guys link up? LA, man. We met on uh yeah, yeah. We got on Craigslist Free Furniture. Yeah, yeah. I was there to pick up a mattress left with a buddy. Um we met on the set of indie movies.

Jack Moran 2:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, like uh some shitty indie movie. I'm not gonna tell you the name because I don't want you to go.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you the name either. I I when I first got there, um you you self-submit for everything until you get your agency or whatever. Um I did this self-submitted for this play that was downtown uh or in in Hollywood, in the heart of Hollywood, super small, like 30, 40 seat, no one ever came, but I met a guy, he was in the cast, and then a year later he asked me to be in a movie that he co-wrote with a buddy that BJ was in. And that's where I met BJ was on the set of uh those indies. That indie movie. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to tell you the names, anyone anyone to say. I don't want anyone renting it, and but we probably couldn't even find it anyway. Remember last podcast we talked about this, and you're like, what if he sees us say that about his movie? I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Listen, I don't know what to say about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

You learn a lot on indie movies, but the cast was cool, man. For for uh I was 23, 24. I don't know how old you were, but I mean, we're with Burt Reynolds and Chevy Chase and Michael Madsen and Ellen Albertini Dow, who's the little old lady from The Wedding Singer. And it was a true indie, though. You know, it was cool, man. Yeah, it was like, whoa, this is legit.

Jack Moran 3:57

Uh was that your first gig, both of your guys' first gig? Or no.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

We were doing commercials back in the day, man. Like I mean, like prior to that. I had like a Sony. We're recording, aren't we? Yeah. I didn't even know we started. Um that's one of the tricks. That's is that what it is? Yeah, one of the tricks. All right, right on. Well, I saw him posture trick questions. All right, Jeff 1 VJ Zero. Um, what was the question? Um, commercials. Yeah. Yeah, that's how we both started. I mean, that's kind of how you did start back in the day, right? You would just do commercial auditions. They're they paid good money, but they're humiliating, right? And then our buddies end up writing a script, and that's how we met.

Jack Moran 4:33

Why are commercials humiliating?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

I don't know. Like, I don't think you study to go be on a McDonald's commercial or just light up on camera eating applesauce. It's humiliating.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

It's just it's the ultimate dues pair. Like, it's not what we all dream of doing when we dream of being an actor. My first commercial, or one of them, was uh dancing Easter egg for Food Lion when I was uh like 16 years old, 17 years old. And uh I had to wear full body tights, and they lowered a giant titanium egg onto me where only my hands and arms stuck out, and I'm dancing in the background, three grand out the door, and I got to try to keep the egg for the pledge class that I was so as well. Did you book that gig and you're like finally? It was fucking best. It was so much money at the time. I was in college, I was a freshman in and at USC. Um, but yeah, I don't I don't dream of doing that. You know, I want to, you know, we all want to do bigger things. Um so it is it feels like a that me feels like a job. And some are better than others, man. Some commercials are fun and it's cool.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

And I think I was pretty lucky on some commercials, man, but that is where you start, right?

Jack Moran 5:37

Like you don't Yeah, so give me that journey in, like into the game.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

I mean, back when we this is early 2000s, man, like when I got there, but it was you printed off physical headshots and then you had no resume, so that was a blank piece of paper. And then you would staple those and you would mail them to agencies hoping to get a commercial agent. And that was the path then, though. Like there was no other way to get an agent. You started with commercials, and luckily, like Jeff and I were very fortunate to like book campaigns at times over and over.

Jack Moran 6:06

What do you mean, campaigns?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Um, so like I had a Sony commercial, but they ran 13. I was like the spokesperson of it. Um, so when you book a campaign, man, you think that money is gonna last forever, and then you buy a bunch of stuff, and then you're broke. Young, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So it does feel like it felt like NBA money at a young age.

Jack Moran 6:24

It did signing bonuses, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Man, I was already I was I was doing theater uh here uh in high school, but also at theater 99 when I was in high school. So I would leave theater and then go downtown and do uh uh a theater with Greg Tavares, who was just starting Theater 99 at the time. I learned improv with Greg and Brandy and came up with them. And then I started, I booked One Tree Hill before I went to LA. Like I had some things, a decent resume before I went out there. In fact, let's cut to Jeff's Real.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

If you have that, yeah, yeah. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, yeah. Um, but like I I was lucky in the fact that I got some momentum before I made the big move and packed my shit up and drove to LA. Um, but even then you get smacked in the fucking dick so fast of how hard it is and how much they don't tell you about that your life, that your job, you are the business. You are the business that you started. It doesn't matter how talented you are, it doesn't matter that you're the best actor that came from wherever the fuck you came from, Juilliard or a small school or a small state. Uh it doesn't matter. You got to know how to walk into a room and talk to people and communicate and network. And luckily, we both have that kind of natural ability to do that. And I think that's what probably got us further along than anything, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

I mean, I think your street smarts are a good you you could say that about any business, right? Right. I feel like 80% of anything you do is communicating with people, you know.

Jack Moran 7:47

Um, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

And then in the entertainment business, I you know, you kind of look at it like it's just like high school for adults, you know. It is, it's it's just high school, and you I realize like, oh hell yeah, put some of that in there. I know you, I know you're a little bit. Um nobody really knows what they're doing. There's no map to it. Like, are you gonna be a doctor? There's a map, like all that business you can kind of navigate from other people's you didn't give me shit. Um so you do like a the your your your big weapon is meeting people and talking to folks. And pretty much anything I've ever gotten was that it was just meeting folks, man. And then I worked at the comedy store. Literally, the day I got to LA, Sunset Boulevard, I walked to the comedy store from my apartment and just hung out. And it's a cross-section of mutants and weirdos there, but I knew that was the place to kind of meet who was up and coming.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, you just put yourself in situations. That's all the proximity is to put yourself in the situation by saying yes, going out, doing the thing, and committing to that lifestyle. And that's why you see people tap out early because it is you have to you have to keep up. You know, you can't even if you stop, someone's gonna take your spot, and it's that it's that times a million when you're in a bigger market like LA or New York or any of the or Atlanta, probably, but you feel it in LA because it's all around you, and uh you just gotta, yeah, you gotta fucking stay on the grind, man, constantly. I mean auditions are gonna come, those those come. That's you know, if you're e even decent at what you do, you can figure out ways to get auditions. Um it's the other stuff, the intangible stuff that you can't teach someone. There's no right way to do it, there's no handbook to say if you do that, you're gonna be an actor. You just put yourself in position, and then something is going to happen. You're gonna meet somebody. I said yes to that shit theater doing uh re uh reenactments of SNL sketches.

Jack Moran 9:47

No way.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

That's what he was, and no one came. But it was that guy, Tim, who I fucking hated day one because he was really funny, and then we turned out to be really good friends. He was better than me. And then we ended up being friends, and then a year later, because of that, he and then blah blah blah. Now I've been writing with him for but when I met him, I'm like, I knew this is the sharpest dude that I've ever met, straight up in comics.

Jack Moran 10:10

Um, but when I met getting yourself out there, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

But no, I I've been around a lot of cool people, man, like really, really smart comedians and actors, but that he's just so sharp.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

And I was like, I'm gonna work with that guy, and then a few years later, but we sure did, you know, like we got together, and um this is the thing, like, whether you're gonna be an actor, and maybe this is true in like if you're pursuing business or whatever it might be, but find yourself a like-minded ride or die that like is down like you're down. Because going through, there's you're gonna get punched in the gut, right? We all over and over and over, the word no stops meaning anything. But if you get punched in the gut with somebody else and you guys get to process it together and laugh, I mean, hanging with comedians, it's a pretty good time, right? But you get to go through it together, and we pretty much learned everything along the way.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And easier said than done. It's not I worked with other people, you worked with other people as far as it's like. Yeah, it's hard. So you kind of have to like figure out who that that person is, and uh we lucked out in that we see the world the exact same way in a lot of ways. We see comedy the same way, but we could not be more different people. Yeah I'm married, I have two kids, I've been married for I don't know, like fucking 13, 14 years.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

I'm single, I fought 24-7, 360 five.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Okay, so yeah. So, like, you know, we our our lives naturally just couldn't be more different, but it it it's good, right? Like you like you said, he challenges me and I challenge him in different ways to think in different ways. And and then when you would apply that to what you're writing, and then you know, character building, all that kind of stuff, it's just anything you're doing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Like even the when we started uh producing, we were producing at such a low level, but you know, that's its own ecosystem and world that comes with its curveballs and shady figures. But going through it alone would be defeating, yeah. And so if if you find a friend, and I would say to anybody, be picky who your ride or die is, you know, like really like see if this is a flow. Because this is like a second marriage for him. It is, you know, yeah, and just be picky who you're doing it with, yeah, and you'll start to see people will fall off because you'll see what they say and then what they do about it. And if you're doing it daily, it's just things unfold, man. Yeah, you know, and just don't lose the enthusiasm for it.

Jack Moran 12:35

Did you guys always know you wanted to be actors?

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

That's all I ever wanted to do, man. From day like as a child. I was I was in front of the camera as a kid and just fucking off and goofing off. I know you were too filming stuff. I I knew I knew I wanted to be a I I love making people laugh. I knew that was gonna be part of the equation no matter what I did. And then obviously acting and like performing. I was like, okay, that could be something. Now, did I know I was gonna be an actor? Probably not until high school when I started doing improv at theater ninety nine and actually learning.

Jack Moran 13:07

What's theater ninety nine?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Theater ninety nine is the the big uh uh improv um here in Charleston? In Charleston, yeah.

Jack Moran 13:13

Oh, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, it's one of the main um improv pieces.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

When did your a question? I shouldn't be asking questions, but I got a question. Uh when did your light bulb go off that you said, I think I'm somewhat good at this? Like my confidence hit. It was my play.

Jack Moran 13:26

This makes it easy. You guys just can be terrific. I just never asked him that. Known the guy a long time.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

It was it was doing a play, you know, like theater in high school when Miss Winkles, shout out to Ellen Winkles, yeah, uh, gave me a lead in the play. It was like, oh shit. That instant laugh of someone right in front of me of an audience of like, wow, like that rush was like just so intense that I'm like, this is this is it, man. You know, this instance like without it, you're nothing. I'm a piece of shit, piece of shit human being without it. Um, no, man, there's theater. I love theater. I want to go back to theater at some point. I want to do Broadway at some point. I haven't done theater in a really long time, but I do love that instant, you know, response of a of a of someone right in front of you. Um something about it. But uh live stuff, yeah. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Uh I've known for a long, long, long time. And yeah, you're right. I I wanted to be an actor from from Jump, but it was watching Jim Carrey, obviously when I grew up, Ace Ventura, the mask, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

And I was a Chris Farley guy.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah. Yeah. His physical comedy is next level, bro.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

I didn't want to go to college, actually. I wanted to go to LA right after high school. My dad said give college uh two years, and if you like it, you can stay. If you don't, then you can go to LA. So I auditioned for NYU at Tisch, I auditioned for Emerson at Boston. Um but I didn't get in academically. They were two separate decisions at the time. So I ended up going to USC. Fucking loved it. Stayed four and a half years because I dropped out for six months to do a movie in New Orleans, came back, finished my degree, drove to LA, and had been there since 2006.

Jack Moran 15:04

What was the movie in New Orleans?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Uh it was it was uh the Madams Family. It was the true story about the Canal Street brothel. And during 9-11, there was a big story happening adjacent to that uh about uh a Madam that had a black book with a lot of very high-level people in it that were going to this uh brothel in New Orleans. It's a true story.

Jack Moran 15:30

The first Epstein files.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah, but it was it was overshadowed by 9-11, so no one really paid attention to that story. I played the head FBI agent, and I was 21 playing a 35-year-old, no idea what I was doing. I was like out of my element for sure. I'm opposite Ellen Burston, who's like a huge actor, and she wasn't nice to me.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Now you're 41, play 50. Yeah, yeah.

Jack Moran 15:55

When you say she wasn't nice to you, what's that?

SPEAKER_01 15:57

She was just like tired and wanted to go home and and told me not to fuck up my my my lines. I'm like, nice to meet you as well. How'd you get that gig in the first place? Auditioning. I I had one round. So I would skip Shakespeare class and drive to Wilmington and Savannah and these others in Charlotte and audition during college and and book. And this one I had to fly to New Orleans and for a callback and audition there, and then I booked it, and that was that.

Jack Moran 16:25

What were you surprised by getting on set, like being around like you know, celebrities and I was surprised by the petty cash you got daily?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Like that was dope. Remember, I was a college kid. Uh I was there for for months, so they were giving me 60 bucks a day. That's great. A couple 20s every day when I wasn't shooting and when I was shooting. And I lived right across the street from uh um the casino. I was at the embassy suites, and Harris Casino was right, and I just turned 21. So every day I would go across the street and lose my money, and and that was like like I don't know, that was just really cool that they gave actors money to like live off of while you were living there. Um but I mean, being on set, every set is different, man. I mean, you know, like certain rules or cool sets, and then there's some, you know.

Jack Moran 17:12

Yeah, give me some behind the scenes. Like, what's it uh what's it like?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Man, it's like the the set the it depends on the project, right? Like, so but being on set for your first time is like everything you ever thought it would be. Like you've made it in your head, but it turned out it was just like a Burger King Whopper commercial, everybody, you know, but like you're there, right? So you kind of achieved, and I believe in stacking little wins, but you've arrived, right? And then as it goes further, like let's just you know, we Jeff and I jumped into like booking co-stars on random shows, and then guest stars, which you'd work two or three episodes, but just or is that mean you're booking co-stars? Sorry, uh so like a co-star, you know, you'd have you're you could be the bell boy or the waiter that comes through. You want it's more than extra, but less than someone who's like a big role, yeah. And then a guest star would be a slightly larger role, which and you could always get like a recurring guest star, which may be the span of two or three or four or more episodes. But the hope is to always level up as a series regular on television, you know, so where you're part of the main cast. But being on a set, it's intimidating and it's exciting at the same time. But the more you're on, the more comfortable you get with them. Um, I was lucky enough to do a pilot with Christopher Lloyd and um John Leguizamo, and just learning what those dudes have been through. Christopher Lloyd, I mean it's Doc Brown, you know. Um just what those guys have been through, the stories they tell, and then you know, like what? Like, don't be a hero on set, you know, it's exhausting. That's what people don't think about. Like, you know how tiring it is to make television or film day after day after day, because after you go home, you're going over the lines for the next day.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And it's you're you're and there's hours and hours of doing nothing. And then you gotta stand up and start doing you know, you gotta turn it on and then turn it off and then turn it off.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Like when you said don't be a hero, you it is nice to I believe in introducing myself to everybody. There's a lot of people, but like I introduce myself once and then I try to keep to myself because you know, he when he said don't be a hero, it's like you don't have to talk to everybody all the time because it will zap you, and then all of a sudden you're zapped and it's your turn to go to do your coverage.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, you gotta you gotta take that energy, man.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

So, you know, I look at people that are at the top of their game, whether you know, male or female, actress doesn't matter, but like these people that are at the top of the A-list making movie after movie, it's the craziest energy juggle ever.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Dude, we we just did it, and we won't fast forward, you know, to this too far just yet. But the movie that we just did last year where we wrote it, we star in it, and we produced it. Fuck it's crazy, bro. And then we we talked about like McBride, who we we partnered with uh that their company on the movie.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Talk about him who also directs on top of that. Like But he's a different beast. I just can't imagine doing wearing all that, all those hats and juggling a hundred million dollar budget and making sure that everything is just going right, but at the same time, I would want to wear all the hats because it's it's if it's our project, you want it done the way that you you know you envision it.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

But then it's yeah, Ron Perlman told us be vicious with your vision. Yeah, like you know, he's all about that. Every step of the way, he was a great mentor. He was in our movie recently. Yeah, he he's cool, man. He's been an awesome mentor as far as like don't let go of your creative vision. Because once we always talk about this, but like when we talked about this on the way over here, but Jeff and I are in the car, and he's like, Hey, remember those days we were in your your studio apartment in LA and we were just working, we were writing, we were acting, we had no prospects, we were just doing it, not getting paid. No, there was no money to company yet. Yeah, we're just grinding. Flash forward when creativity eventually meets commerce, and that's when you see what you're made of.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Well, the fun can get sucked out so fucking fast, and then you're like, what do we, you know, the last thing we get to do these days is the first thing that we love, which is which is getting in front of the camera. So we're actors first, we're writers by necessity, and then we became obsessed. Necessity because we wanted another way into the into the into this into the business. Um, and then we you know fell in love with writing. Um, and then producers started our company 10 years ago, um, and then you know, learned that whole game. And producing is just like the ultimate chess game. It's just chess, man. How so? Just you just it's the ultimate. Who do you know? How do you know them? Yeah, can you make this call? Can you put that together? You know, can you pivot here? Can you pivot there?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

There's also chess on your own team. And then there's chess within the other people are have motives that are different than yours as a political. Yeah. And that's one guy's making a decision because it's money, even though that ruins creativity. I'm making a creative decision and it might ruin his money. And that's on a project. That's on a project.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

If you zoom out. And there's no project, and you're just talking about let's find something to produce, uh, whether it's our own product or we're producing someone else's product. Um, that whole thing, that whole game of like, you know, trying to outsource that and and bring that in, which is what we're doing here. You know, uh I moved here and he's back and forth from KC still, but uh to our company is here to start making more more movies in the state. Want to bring more together.

Jack Moran 22:26

Yeah, so tell us about that project that you guys have got now.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah, well, it's it's uh it's currently called Suburban Psycho. It was first called My Best Friend is a Serial Killer. Um right now it's called Suburban Psycho, and we're still playing with other titles, but it's a dark comedy, and it's about a group of friends, three friends that grew up in Charleston, and they are best friends, and uh two of them grow up, me and BJ's character, to be kind of the same dudes as they always were. And the third one uh grew up to be like the most charming guy in the city, the news anchor, uh local celeb, hot as fuck, you know, great, wealthy uh family, and he's been killing people for 30 years, and we figure that out. And then the movie is about us proving that our boy is not a serial killer.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

So we have to go down a reluctant path to see if our buddy's a serial killer.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

So it's the burbs, pineapple express type of vibes.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

But at the end of the day, it it's a it's a straight up R-rated buddy comedy. Yeah, you know, and that's what we want to keep making, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

And it was cool, man. It was our first big swing of the bat as a production company. Um it was uh it was a really amazing budget for two guys that you know don't exactly have that track record of say of sales yet. We've been actors our whole lives, but yeah, we were blessed to do that. Yeah, I mean, truly, man, it was a lot our investor and business partner, uh Jeffrey Jeffrey Zucker.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Hashtag Jeffrey Zucker.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, he he uh he he put it all on the line and said, fuck it, let's do it. Because you know, we had gotten over the 10 years, all in the industry's eyes, we were getting W's slowly working our way up, but on the outside it looked like we were just kind of idle, but we were working so much Yeah, like nothing was hitting the IMDBs, so people would be like, these guys haven't worked in forever.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

But the doors but we were silently grinding to build whatever it is we were building.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

And that short you watched was our skeleton key that opened every door in in Hollywood. We pitched every single major streamer at the time. Um, everyone loved it. They couldn't get past the word porn because mainly it was the Me Too movement and it was just shit timing timed to be uh pitching an R-rated porn comedy during the Me Too movement, um, even though we propped women up and like it was right on the heels after Weinstein. But yeah, it wasn't even it was like uh it still is. It's it's smart, it's not low-hanging, stupid shit. Either way, um we uh people really responded to that. So then we ended up selling that to uh a company that folded weeks later and lost that deal um after we threw a really cool party with all these seconds.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

I mean it's obviously sucks every single time. Oh yeah, you still cry. The word, oh yeah, not it doesn't sting as much as it did, and that's something I took from all of this too, is like when I was younger, man, I was applying so much meaning to everything. Just like every no had meaning. This person's there, it doesn't nobody cares. Nobody gives me a couple of things, you know, but it doesn't have any meaning. It I learned it's just business, like people aren't even thinking about what's just feedback like it, man.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, it's just it's your job is to go as an actor, at least. Your job is to literally go in there, whatever you prepared for the character you give them, and then you walk out, and hopefully you're happy with that, and that's that's the job. You have no control over what they are thinking and wanting and doing. Um, you know, you it's your job to persuade them that you're the best fit for the character that you're auditioning for. That's just acting, writing and producing, they're all different worlds, man, and they don't even talk to each other. That's the right thing. We were pitching TV for the first four or five years of our production company, and then when we shifted over to film, no one in the same companies, the Netflixes and the all these places, they hadn't heard of our projects because they don't talk to each other, they're in the same fucking building. Yeah, TV and different departments. So our our shorts still like held up, and we could you know use those to kind of move around and um so how did the idea for this movie come to be, and then how did you guys bring it to fruition?

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Suburban Psycho? Yeah, oh man. So, Jeff, this was summer of 25. Um, we were both 24. We were both unemployed and bored one summer, like in between gigs, and we knew we wanted to write a movie together, but we didn't know it was getting funded. We had no clue. It's like, let's just write a movie this summer. And I wanted to do something with a criminal element, and Jeff wanted to do something that revolved around like the mundane suburbs, and we're like, all right, well, let's do crime in the suburbs. And so that's when we started beating this movie out and trying to figure out what this story was. And I think we wrote it fairly quickly.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

We did because we challenged ourselves to write it in a different way than how we normally wrote it. Yeah, instead of we're we're overthinkers, and we study the rules in order to break them. But if you know all the rules, then you can afford to what are the rules? I mean, it's a load of questions. But yeah, like the rules of writing, you know, there's certain structural elements that you want to stay aligned with so you know at a fundamental level that your story is sound, someone watching subconsciously knows the rhythm, the audience is written in a certain when it works and they know when it doesn't, they just don't know why it's so we figured out why.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

So if I told you how to tidbits. If I told you the structure of a movie and how to write a movie, I'd ruin the magic of movies. Like, because it because I can't watch, I know Jeff too, I can't watch a movie anymore without pausing to see where they hit this mark, where they hit that mark, how did they turn into act two?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

But also the sign of a good movie is is not pausing and it's camoed. If it's good writing and it's camoed in a way that, you know, you don't see the matrix of the structure, then you know you're watching someone who made a really good movie. But if you see that act break or that whatever, that moment or that line that's like so obvious that they're stating the theme and the first, you know, like there's just so many little things. I'm like, okay, they were obviously reading the book of how to write a movie and just wrote down the line, you know, a nice linear uh story. BJ and I learned the linear way to write a movie, and now we go like this.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

We veer in and out of it. But we make sure our our spine is still there that you know now we have plenty to learn, like as writers, but that's something that I love about Jeff, man. It was like we're always we're always kind of learning together. But like even when like I'll be exhausted, and Jeff are like, let's get one hour in. Like the power of the hour with Jeff Howard. That's yeah, that's one book, right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, even in that one hour. And so I remember us be when we were aspiring writers, we were writing and sharing with people, and they said, These are funny, they're just a collection of scenes. Like it doesn't, so we didn't have the story right. And then I'll never forget when we studied structure and we learned it. It's like a light bulb. Yeah, it was like whole.

Jack Moran 29:22

Where do you go to find like where's the knowledge base for it?

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Just practiced online.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Like we like Save the Cat is articles. The the book Save the Cat is still like it's a good place to start. It's a good place to start. Oh, yeah. Um, there's lots of school of thoughts of of how to write, and and and a lot of our knowledge of writing came from actually reading scripts because we're actors first. And you read enough scripts, you know, you start to see the patterns. Patterns. If you started talking to uh we had some people mentor us like uh Jillian Bell uh is an actress. Um Ike Barry Holtz, uh uh Nat Faxen, these guys they gave us some really good advice, you know, and uh and they were already established writers and successes at the time. Well that one that one and Jim Ress one won uh for best best writing.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

But yeah, if you ever want to learn how to write a movie, I agree with Save the Cat. Get the basic understanding and then go watch any Pixar movie because they hit the culminations because it's four kids, they hit that subconscious culmination every single time.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Why you feel good when you watch it, because there's an Ella, there's a there's a formula to it.

Jack Moran 30:29

And so what's that baseline formula like? There's probably you got to get a hook in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

I mean, some every shot our music swells to to what how you're seeing it. It's like there's it's so nuanced, man.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

It's out of her like we work some people will do their uh 5x structure, 8x structures, whatever, like that just chops it up into sections. But we operate on three ads, yeah, you know, and so like and we operate inside of sequences. So, like obviously the opening of your movie, you want to establish the theme and you want to stay show the location that you're at, and then you want to cruise into meeting your characters, and then that status quo. And then what breaks the status quo? What like the inciting incident, you know, whatever that is, it turns that person's world upside down. Then that person debates it for a second, and then they choose the mission, and that's the break into act two. Um, that's the promise of the premise, you know. This is the audience finally aligning with the character saying, I want to watch this person go on that journey. That's when the movie really starts. And your act two is just a series of ups and downs for the character. Learn a little bit along the way, third act hits, and then obviously you have your resolution of the movie. But then you can simplest way.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

You can break it down into eight mini-movies, sequences. That's the sequence. So in a three-act structure, let's say you have act one, there's two sequences in act one. So act one is sequence one, sequence two, then you have act two, which is chunkier. You have four sequences.

Jack Moran 31:52

What are those sequences?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Those are little mini movies, a beginning, middle end.

Jack Moran 31:57

Could you watch them independently?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

You could lose context because each scene has to build, each sequence has to build on the one before it. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So think of it in terms of pages, right? A five five uh fifteen pages per sequence. So you have five pages for the beginning, five pages for the middle, five pages for the end. By the time you get to that end, you should leave in on a cliffhanger that will now marry to the next sequence naturally. So if you wanted to just focus on any given sequence and zoom in, and you'll start seeing holes and gaps in your story because of the way that you've structured it. They're like, oh, we're missing something here. And and act two, you know, sequence two, two C, we know there's something in our story that's that's you know not there right now, and we need to go back and figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

I think sequencing is a good thing. Were you gonna say something interrupting?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

No, it's just really cool, man.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

It's like, you know, it's eye-opening because sequencing ends up if any person's trying to say, I want to learn how to write, uh, study the sequencing method of things because it breaks a 90-page script, it's overwhelming to think about getting right. But if you break it up as it's a total of eight sequences, um that's that's portioning out bite-sized chunks that you can build on.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

It's making it more manageable to write. Yeah, especially when you're by yourself and you're taking on something like that. Um it's hard, man. Writing's fucking hard. Yeah, and then all the way through.

Jack Moran 33:14

How do you articulate that to an investor because they're not gonna read 90 pages?

SPEAKER_01 33:17

You don't. You show them uh the power of the sizzle, the power of the visual. We knew that with what we wrote uh with the gone soft, we can say the name of it. Sure. Um, where the main character uh comes in his own face on page two. Yeah, boy no one's gonna give us any money to go make that. Uh luckily, we found an investor who I grew up with here, um, and and good friend who watched, he saw me on Workaholics. I did a uh a guest star on Workaholics. We connected after years, comes to find out that he loves R-rated humor. He meets with BJ, and we formed this company, and he like he's believed in us uh since. And uh he was the one that was like, I'll I'll I'll show them how this could actually work. And paid for it. And he paid for it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Um but he he we lucked out with that with with Jeffrey Zucker because uh he's not just a financier, like he's also a creative, like he's a he's a he's a cinephile. So like he that's rare.

Jack Moran 34:18

What's his background?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Um, I mean, real estate, the guy's a serial investor, so like he just real estate, cannabis industry, uh, restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Um, he owned a restaurant in Chicago.

Jack Moran 34:29

How'd you get linked up with him?

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I grew up with him here. Our families uh are close. He's my son's godparent.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Okay, so I challenge you to find many financiers that are also creatives, or also just like families in general.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

I don't know if you know the Zucker family in in Charleston, but their whole family, they're all just incredible people. Um, Anita, Jonathan Zucker, um Andrea. Andrea is a sister, and Jerry Zucker was the was his father who passed from brain cancer, but he was like the guy here. He was the man, he was the man. He uh is his trajectory was like Elon Musk level. He has over like 300 patents, and yeah, he owns InterTech. I don't know, uh he started the Intertek group. Um and just like the most incredible human being, philanthropist, just uh an amazing person, and that trickled down to Jeffrey for sure. He's the youngest of the of the kids. Um he got the Hollywood. And he's just a good dude. He's a good dude that loves creative and loves the arts and it believes in what we're doing and and has given us this chance to you know make make movies, man.

Jack Moran 35:37

Yeah, and you you had given me like a little bit of a tidbit. So besides the movie, you guys are doing like a production company, right? Is that before before the movie, or that's come from the movie?

SPEAKER_02 35:46

We started the production company 10 years ago or so because and honestly, we did it out of again, everything we do is out of necessity, I think. But um, we did that because we kept auditioning and then you we wouldn't book or you would, but then auditions just started drying up, and we kind of saw it for what it was. It's like, okay, we can keep being uh waiter number one and number two, or X, Y, and Z, or we can kind of put our own thing together.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

And also we were both collectively stubborn in that we did not want to do the YouTube route. YouTube popped off. I got there in 2006, that's kind of when it started, Facebook and those things, but I think it was 2008 that YouTube started becoming a platform for creators in that way, and I just never wanted to do it, man. I never, never really wanted to do it, and then that's what we had in common. We both didn't want to give our content and just blow it all over the place and hope that one sticks. We're for lack of a you know, we holstered all the jokes.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah, we stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

So we're sitting on mounds and mounds of stuff. Yeah, someone said that to us. Yeah, um, but like we're just stubborn. We're like, we worked really hard not to have the prefix YouTuber Jeff Howard, YouTuber BJ Bales, for better or for worse. There's a positive yeah, people make great living doing it. You know, there's you can make a great living, but it depends on what you want to do. And we want to be mainstream actors, and taking that leap from social media to mainstream is still really, really tough to do, even if you have the followers, it's still still tough. So it was either that go be a YouTuber and fart at people, or try to raise money and make a real movie. And I mean, that's what someone said to us like go, go, go make fart videos, man. You go make yeah, we'll make fart.

Jack Moran 37:26

You see a lot of musicians taking that route now these days, too, and like the power of you know not signing with a label, but yeah, man, maybe on your own.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Yeah, the the game is so different for sure, man.

Jack Moran 37:35

How has it changed from when you guys first got into the game to now and like the opportunities within you know the industry?

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Man, it's crazy because there is more you have more options. Like the gatekeeper was, in some ways still is, but the gatekeeper was the gatekeeper that started. So like the guild or whatever? Well, no, I mean like as an actor, let's say, like you have to the first thing you have to do is find that gatekeeper to getting an agent. And then once you get the audition, that gatekeeper is now uh the casting director that you have to get called into their room and make it to the next level to go for a callback and then to the producers. So it's filled with gatekeepers. Industry now, man, like you don't need it to make a splash to make your projects. You know, when Jeff and I started, you couldn't just go buy two cameras, like it would it'd be cost you uh$200,000, like or whatever it was. Just it's uh it was preventative. But now you can make whatever you want, you can do it on an iPhone if you want to. So the path to the path has changed. It's not just one door. Um, you can go in the back door, you know, and I think that's what's great about it now. That's the whole point of the production company.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

I mean, it's it's not a novel idea, man. You know, like it's always been there that you can do go online and prove your your brand or prove whatever your your thing is, and then say, hey, look at this and look at these followers, and then they scoop you up and give you your own show or platform or whatever it is. It's still the same thing for sure. It's just in our the way that we're doing it, we're doing it with okay, we have a movie coming out in the fall. Um, we should jump in the game now. Now's the time to start, you know, pushing our brand out there, and and you know, whether it's a podcast or shorts or sketches or whatever it may be, but in a strategic calculated way. This is the part where we become YouTubers. Yeah. To build into the big reveal. Yeah, got them good. We flip them up. Yeah, we sure got them, huh? Yeah. Um, yeah, this is what we tell ourselves to, you know, yeah.

Jack Moran 39:27

If you were gonna start again today and you were like, you know, starting from zero, like what path would you take?

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Depends on what you want to do. That's true. Like you want to be a social media influencer, I got a path for you. If you want to be a movie actor, a movie actor, then I I think you use social media as a tool and you do it in a smart way, you don't and and then but you have to do the other things that people tend to what's the smart way on social media, and then what are those other things? It's showing your brand, right? It if you want to be a dramatic actor, and your brand being yourself, your brand being.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yeah, whatever your shtick is or whatever you you think is unique about you. Yeah, and but I think there's a fine line because I didn't grow up in the world of like put your some people put their auditions online, and I, you know, personally, I think that's a bit of a mistake. I think that's work that should be done in the shadows, and then you just kind of figure all that out. But if you're gonna put something up, make it a good representation of what you're doing, you know. Um, because so many people just put up whatever and it lives forever.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

And but you, you know, in fairness, you kind of have to do that if you want to stay in anyone's, you know, to get in that algorithm, you have to keep feeding it, right? So it that's the challenging part. Yeah, we've we have friends that are very successful and doing comedy on TikTok and and the and Instagram, but they can't get out of the machine because if you stop, then your income stops, and then you fall out of line and you're not on that for you page anymore, and then the shit can blow up. So you he's having trouble getting out of it and into mainstream auditions and acting. Um, so it's like, I don't know, man, it's like pick pick your poison. But if you want to be uh kid in movies and TV and you're just starting the day, the number one thing I would say is get into an improv class. That's number one. You're in the position to meet people, whether you're in drama or a comedy, you're learning how to how to take direction, you're learning how to think on your feet. You need to have those those things when you go to any set, and you're gonna immediately meet people that are doing it. More than likely, more people are doing improv classes than they are at some random studio and trying to matriculate through a studio and be the best of that acting studio.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Just be part of the community. Yeah, meet the community. That's important. Yeah. Because I remember working at the comedy store, I was part of that ecosystem for a while. And it at the time, like Mark Marin says, the comedy store is built directly over a portal to hell. And it was the weirdest job I've ever had. But I I made the most interesting contacts and had the most informative time as an artist, like seeing what these other people are doing, going through, how they're doing it day in, day out. Um, but the if you're part of the community, it's automatic that other this guy over here, this gal over here has also got a project they're working on. Yeah. And they'll climb here and you'll climb here. And if you're in that community, then you're gonna start working on these projects and kind of climb up together.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Things just happen.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

You sit on the couch.

Jack Moran 42:13

Why did he say it was built over a portal to hell?

SPEAKER_02 42:15

The comedy store is the seediest, weirdest place ever, man. How so? In a good way. Oh man. I mean, like, it just has such crazy history. Apparently, the basement's haunted. Um, you know, that's where Sam Kinison pulled out a revolver and shot at everybody right through the comedy store sign. Bullet hole's still there.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Um, it's just, it was all when I was there, it was lawlessness. Like anything went. It's like the second you got off of Sunset Boulevard and pulled into that parking lot of the comedy store, it was its own universe, dude. Just dark with red lights. There's three different stages, all different sizes.

Jack Moran 42:48

I've been there. The energy is kind of heavy there. It's it's weird.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Not for me. I was weird. But I enjoyed that. I don't know what it was, man. It was just like some sort of raw possibility there.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

There is something in devil energy that's really, really cool. For sure. I was down the street at groundlings, so I was flexing that muscle and trying to learn improv and and went through the groundlings a little bit, and then UCB, which is another improv place out there, uh got a little bit of that. And and um that's kind of where I cut my teeth as far as like at next level education beyond college and whatever acting classes I had pro prior to that. Um but really, man, I mean, so much of it is just doing it, you know, which is the irony, right? It's getting in front of a camera as much as you can, which is what YouTube is. You're again, you know, there's pros and cons to doing it, and one of the pros is you're constantly watching tape of yourself and seeing the choices you made. Whether it's uh yeah, yeah, but I mean you you learn, you know, you learn quicker uh by studying the shit that you're you know, watching yourself fucking sucks though.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

But getting uncomfortable each step of the way, I think. If you can kind of embrace the uncomfortable part of it and not apply so much meaning every step of the way, no matter what you're building, like knowing there's going to be some bullshit soon, because there will be, but I think that just like kind of sitting in that uncomfortability and plucking what you can from it is the is the best way I've ever grown. Because I think good things happen on the heels of something shitty, you know. So let's say you had a no uh from an audition or whatever. Well, you can bitch about it, you can go drink, or you can be like, all right, well, let's figure out what character I can work on tonight, or what monologue can I practice. You do it in the shame of your own bedroom, but you you keep doing it over and over and over, and it seems inconsequential, but then it just stacks. And that's I've noticed times when I've stepped away from it and gone back, how rusty you feel. And so just whether it's writing, whether it's acting, producing's different because you have a team. Yeah. But yeah, staying staying with it because, like you said, um, what would you do different? Um I don't know that I would do a ton different, but I probably would suggest to anybody get involved like Jess at improv classes and go try stand-up. Like any community, yeah, and go get yourself on a movie set. Because then, like, really think about is this what you want to do?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Um and when he says go get yourself on a movie set, right? It does it it sounds, oh, that's easy. It it if you're crafty, you can get on, you can get on these things, man. You can get on as a PA, you can get on as an extra. There are ways to maneuver around. You just have to go get it. You can't sit on a couch and wait for the phone and wait for your agent to call or wait for an email or fucking self-submit all day. You need to get up and position yourself and go do things and take the losses and treat them as a learning experience and keep moving forward. I I I've always, when I went out to LA, I saw my goal and I always saw it uh as long as I'm moving forward toward it, then I'm I'm doing good. And anything that stops in my way, I just sidestep and keep moving and just sidestep anytime I move backward, I know I'm doing something wrong. And within the first two years of being there, I noticed that backward step, and I was stuck in a routine of survival mode of just making ends meet and you know, surviving as a waiter, doing classes, and I'm like, fuck, dude. Like I'm I'm not really pursuing, I'm I'm not really going for it. I forgot what I was doing here, and then I made that adjustment and we you know uh fired my manager, which was really cool. I've never done that before. Um he's a piece of shit, and he was taking all my money uh that I, you know, got on my own. What was his name for the people? Um but uh you know go ahead. I actually don't remember his name. I just remember him up now. I can see him in my head. He was uh he was a shady piece of shit, dude.

Jack Moran 46:51

Um are there a lot of shady guys in the business?

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Yes, and you gotta surround yourself with people that aren't, and you gotta weed those people out. And that's what me and BJ have worked really hard to do together.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Yeah, we kind of have a rule if you can't be cool, you can't kick it. And like we have we live in our own little secret society, you know, whether you think we're cool or not, it doesn't really matter. But like the energy has to be because there are shady people, man. So I feel like how do you pluck them out?

SPEAKER_01 47:19

What are the red flags? Well, I mean, there are they're everything from obvious ones to just a gut instinct. You know, you when you meet a uh a salesman, a used car salesman, or someone who is using you or a leech, you know, there are signs that are pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Um but but there's people out there, I call them climbers, but that the second that comes out of their mouth, you realize that their line of questioning is what can I possibly squeeze out of you? Yeah. Um, if they become your friend too quick, like your best, like there's so many stupid little tactics that a lot of these people do, and and that's why people prey on young artists, you know, like in Hollywood, like they don't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

But you know, on the flip side, I talk about it, I talk about it a lot, is you have to ask, you have to ask for for help. You have to ask people for advice, you have to ask, you have to learn how to ask, and that's really hard to do and be genuine at the same time and not come across as someone who's like trying to get something out of you because you are, but it's also I got my first agent because I asked my friend Will, who was another waiter, would you mind putting my stuff in front of your agent? And that's hard to do because it is most actors don't want to give away you know their agent. It's perceived as possible competition. Yeah, so like you know, but maybe there are ways to phrase things and be genuine about it, and you you learn that by just learning how to communicate, you know, just socializing. Again, it's just it's all about communication, man. But that's like in any business, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Like, just don't suck.

Jack Moran 48:44

You were talking about like how you're stacking on all or you're sitting on all these jokes, and I'm interested, like how the creative process works when you're creating a joke and like what you learned at the comedy store, seeing people who are in you know at the top of their game creating these jokes and what kind of like the methodology is.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Like the craft of a joke, or how I mean, God, that's interesting, man, because when you watch stand, it's very different approaches, you know. Like as a writer, you've got multiple characters. As a stand-up, you're crafting a joke in the same way, but it's you playing all the roles. Yeah, move the mic a little closer. It's you playing all the roles in stand-up, you know. So the the joke, it's funny, like I said, like some of the guys that showed up with a premise that didn't quite land, and then over the period of six months to a year, that joke has now become a fully fleshed joke. And any great stand-up, I don't include myself in that, but any great stand-up knows exactly where to pivot if it doesn't get a laugh, and they know exactly where to tag a joke at the end to keep the laughs going. And you can tag a joke as many times as you can. What do you mean, tag a joke? So if you do the setup, you know, you you set the premise and then you set up, set up, and then your punchline. That's the joke, the unexpected part. Um, then you can add one more piece to it that the audience wasn't expecting. That's a tag. Give us an example give us a give us a joke. I'm not that funny. Oh, just yeah, just one. I don't. I don't. Talk to a standard. It's the worst ass. Hey, be funny real quick. Yeah, do your stick. Just to do your bit. Do something. Um, but then as far as when Jeff and I work together, uh, these the jokes and premises that we've come up with either didn't live or belong in a movie or TV show we were writing, or because of our ADHD, we'll just blurt out insane premises and build on them, and then those just live in Google Docs.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Here's the fucked up thing, man, is we we are built for to be YouTubers. We probably would have done really, really well because our brains are outfitted for it the way we we think. We think in bite-size. Um, you know, it it's a never-ending reservoir of ideas that are just constantly being generated on a daily basis. Um, whether they're good or not is a different story. But, you know, uh, we're kind of built for it. But yeah, we we needed to figure out a different outlet because we didn't want to just throw it all up online, underdeveloped, under, you know, worked. Um, so I guess that's why we we veered off it. But we do, like, we do have so much shit that we have.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

So many like vaults and banks of old jokes. We'll even read through some of them from like a decade ago and be like, it's dog shit. But you know what? If we massage this little thing and we did this with it, and we applied it in this scenario, then all of a sudden it, you know, it's lived forever and now it's useful.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

I did have a song, one song, Shameless Plug. Sing it for him. I will bongs and blunts and bews and beds and yeah. So the college song. Wow, that was great. Yeah, thanks. I wrote it during during uh my time at USC, actually went viral before YouTube and took down my my cousin's website because they got so many hits. But I I I could have pivoted from a it was a comedy, it was a comedic song. I could have, but again, it's just like you it was like a gross feeling. You don't I don't know, I don't it just didn't want to be, I don't know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Being a YouTube, yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Because eventually it went it went on to YouTube. Right. I always thought we were still on the uh crafting jokes. I didn't know.

Jack Moran 52:05

Can someone who is not okay? How does someone who's not funny become funny?

SPEAKER_02 52:11

I don't know that that's possible. Shit. But but again, like repetition's everything, right? Like if you went to an improv class and you learned what to do, but more importantly, what not to do, you would improve.

Jack Moran 52:24

It would improve because they teach you to do and not to do.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Well, like an improv, and again, I'm not pretending we know tons of world-class improv friends, man. They're like unbelievably talented. But like the number one rule in improv is yes and. Just say yes and never say no. Like, hey, hey, today's my birthday party. No, it's not, that's tomorrow, and the scene's dead. Um, but if you say, Oh yeah, you know what, I forgot to get you a present, but something cool is coming soon, you keep the scene going. And that's the nature of improv. It's just yes and.

Jack Moran 52:56

What's the gauge for someone who's good at improv?

SPEAKER_01 52:58

I I I I think to be funny, going back to that real quick though. That's a tough question. The fastest way to be funny is just to be as uh authentic to yourself as humanly possible. Because then your guard is down and you're just just you know, you're speaking freely, and you'll something will land, and you'll find, you know, so it's not like you you would be trying to be funny. It's just if the more that you're yourself you find your voice, yeah, you'll find your yeah, you'll otherwise playing a version of it. Or trying to do something, yeah. Or I learned this skill, so I'm gonna try to just be your raw self, even if it's fucking weird, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

It will be weird at first because you won't know what that baseline is, but then once it starts to feel authentic, you kind of know it, right? You're just doing it in front of other people. When I worked at the comedy store, I answered phones there at first, you know, during the days, soul sucking comedy store. What time's the show? Um, a comedian, still a friend, done great things, Al Madrigal. He came in to see when he was on the lineup. So I told him, and I told him I was trying to write some jokes, and I just really didn't know what to do. His best advice he ever gave me for stand-up, he's like, Don't write, don't write what you think is funny, just write what you think. And that stuck with me because I was always looking for the the joke, you know, and the joke lives in just the unique way in which a person thinks. And I think it's the quickest way to fighting your voice.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Observational comedy, you know, like Seinfeld is a great example. It's just his how he sees the world, how Larry David sees the world, you know, and and it's unapologetic. He quite literally writes the way he thinks. Yeah, like you know, um, you know, which is hilarious. Yeah, it's just you know, and that's like big influences for us, and how we try to write and how we our our movie hopefully will land is like we try to be just normal people in abnormal situations.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

We don't like joke surf uh in our writing and acting. We just kind of want these our characters to be guys you hang out with. Yeah, not so much like set up, set up, punchline, set up because some movies you'll watch in comedies and you feel like you're watching a group of guys do this or a group of ladies, and we want the audience, hopefully, this is the goal, right? Like, hopefully the audience feels like they're doing this this stupid shit with us. Yeah. That's like at least the grand vision. Um, the hangout kind of movie. You know?

Jack Moran 55:13

Who would you say is like the best master of his or her craft that you've encountered?

SPEAKER_02 55:17

In in in comedy through or throughout man, like just in general? In general. That's so really tough question.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

I'm so I've had such an amazing like opportunity, like opportunities to work with people, be uh front row to people to see it, you know, like uh uh and and I don't know, man. You just see so many amazing performers.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

It's hard to in the stand-up world, you know, you've got guys that that w aren't even household names. I mean, I mean R.I.P. But like Brody Stevens um was just unapologetically him at the comedy store. And it was like the most raw but undiscovered genius um that I'd ever seen. And then other names you may or may not know. Well, you guys probably know Edie Patterson.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Edie is um, she's a genius, the one of the best that's doing it, like a living comedic genius. Yeah, and she's getting a lot of praise right now, and it's so you know, um warranted, man. She is a comedic genius. Yeah, she's just a good actor all around.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

But you know those people that have created separation, and and like she like it's undeniable. Undeniable.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

And she comes from the groundling world, and yeah, and uh her friends, uh uh uh Emily Pintergast, who is on the new Jerry Duty Emily's show.

Jack Moran 56:37

Like Jerry Duty's hilarious, yeah. What a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Uh Amy, yeah, uh and on that show, she's got a one-of-a-kind mind, genius, and and her friends Allison Dunbar, they're all they all come from the same world, man. You know, and so there it's just uh I don't know.

Jack Moran 56:52

Any significant moments that like snap something into your awareness that like you implement now into your own process, seeing someone, and we're like, wow, that's how they do it.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

Like that's a good that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

Man, because you could do this from like an acting standpoint, a writing standpoint, and a producing standpoint.

Jack Moran 57:09

Any significant moment like that?

SPEAKER_02 57:11

Where it's like, ooh, I'm gonna backpocket that. You know, to be honest with you, uh this started me on that journey, but like um John Leguizamo, who I mentioned I'd worked with before on this uh this pilot, he taught me a lot about uh uh camera awareness, not just like being aware of the lens and stuff, but like because an actor you think he's just acting. But then if you're gonna be on TV or movies, you have to understand the lens and you have to sound like what millimeter they're using, what shot is this? It informs how big or small. That that was like eye-opening to me because it's like, oh, there's a technical craft to this too. I think Tom Cruise talks a lot about it, but there's a technical craft that opened my eye as an actor, as a writer. What do you think? Because we went through this together.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

I never had to learn anything, everything came to be natural. You never could know. Uh I just figured it out in a way where I didn't need anybody or anything. You're just a savant. Yeah. And once you win, everyone fucked themselves. Yeah, shit. Uh, yeah. I don't know, man. I feel like anytime I'm ever around any professional, I learned something. I take something away from it, big or small. Um, sometimes you take away things like, ooh, I'm I'm not gonna do that. You know, so it's third, you learn things that you don't want to do.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Uh but you can learn a lot about just it's so uncomfortable. I mean, it's dissociative in a way, but watching yourself on camera, you'll just pick out your bad habits, things you don't like, something the audience may never see. I'm gonna watch this and I'm gonna fucking hate it.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Only because I don't like watching myself.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

Yeah, and hopefully this is well received. Because you crucify yourself, but like once you can watch yourself in third person and be like, all right, like whatever. Like, no one does 10 great takes, but you only need one to print. Yeah, you know. But if you watch enough of your takes, you're like, I don't like how I'm doing that.

Jack Moran 58:54

I'm too small, I'm too big, I'm then it probably has an effect on the next one if you don't have short-term memory.

SPEAKER_01 58:59

Being on friendly cameraman, like if you're gonna be an actor, you just have to surrender to there's a camera on you. I I have an inside voice, just like everybody. This guy will do literally anything. He will show his butt balls and dick if you were he was asked to do it, and he has for money. You're right. So, and I have, you know, I don't want to take my shirt off and do stuff like that, right? But I've had to do it, you know, and I've had to do it in front of a live studio audience, and it was really fucking hard. But if you're gonna do this, you have to push yourself and then surrender that there's just you get so ice cold about it. I don't know that there's a camera, I don't care anymore. I don't care that you can see this the part of my neck that's probably gobbling the whole time like a fucking turkey neck, because the angle of the camera. Now I'm thinking about it, like I know it's there, sure, but there's nothing I can do about it, right? So, you know, either do it or you don't do it. And but nobody notices though. That's what you realize. Nobody cares. No one fucking cares. Nobody cares. No one's seeing what you're seeing. Nobody cares. And also, it doesn't matter. Nobody knows what they're doing. That's the biggest secret we've learned in this business is no one really knows what they're doing. Everyone has another person to talk to about, you know, any given situation, from all the way to the top to all the way to the bottom. We're all just trying to figure it out. People have to do it. Some people are more informed than others, for sure. Not saying that, but like as far as where, you know, what's hot right now, what's gonna hit no one fucking knows, man. Yeah, you know, like you just kind of again be authentic to whatever you're putting out and and try to retain as much ownership of the IP as possible because you can these days, and that's why we're doing everything independently. We we we kind of unplugged from the system, came here to start doing our own shit, and then we'll plug back in when we need to distribute because we still need to.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:48

Because the further along you go in the studio system, not like this has been the biggest problem in the world because it's it's uptown problems to have studio movies in the pipeline at whatever degree, but every step of the way, there's so many different people that have to green light it, gatekeepers. Uh, you just slowly seeing the creativity and your vision just being ripped out of the thing until you don't even recognize your own project. Yeah, and that's that's that's frustrating from an artist's standpoint, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

So going indie, you know, just gives you more opportunity to stick to your vision.

Jack Moran 1:01:20

What does indie mean? Like not like independent.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

Independent, no studio, um obviously that's pretty intuitive, but funds independently, you know, but you just get so much creative control. Now you don't get this guaranteed distribution that's built into some of these bigger studio deals, but you can find distribution.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

You can liken it in any industry. Let's say you're a lawyer, you're working for a big firm, and you want to start your you, you know, want to go independent. You're not gonna have that insurance and everything built in like you had that big firm, but you'll be independent. You can go find your own clients, you can build your own. It's the same shit. We're just we were just we don't we're tired of saying other people's words. We that's not the way that we speak as acting. You know, we we have a voice, we have a brand, and we think people are gonna like it. We hope people will like it. Um but we believe in it and we want to put it out there, and the more control we have over that, you know, the more control we have over what people see. So again, going back to Zucker, thank God he was like, Yeah, he's got a vision. I bel I believe in that, and and we've been we've been grinding really hard, man, to get to this point with this movie, and hopefully it's just a start because we have a lot of really cool shit that's lined up.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Yeah, I hope people are gonna dig the movie. I think it's gonna be like a little you know cartwheel through you know minefield for people, you know, the movie that doesn't take itself seriously, but um I think in my opinion, comedy like well, I was curious what y'all think, but um the comedy world probably ever since the Me Too movement, and it's been diluted. Yeah, like everything plays safe now, man. It's guarded, it's safe. I agree. I won't name any movies, but even the ones are like this is the next raunchy comedy, it you're like, yeah, but you still just played it so safe. I agree. And do you think the public wants like you as a person? Do you want these crazy comedies? No.

Jack Moran 1:03:05

I think it's like no, no, I I don't want the the water jelly. Oh, the water jump. Okay, and I think that like, you know, they talk about like everyone like cares about these things, and like I don't really encounter with like many people that are like really wanting to be you to be like so politically correct that it you know drains the comedy. Like, yeah, I think that that's almost like propaganda to just work divide the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

There are clever ways to punch up, not down, but like but it's just allowing yourself to go there, and we offend everyone equally. You know, that's our mindset is like offend everyone equally. Everyone gets their lips, man. And and that, you know, as long as you're truthful about it and genuine, uh then I don't think you can, you know, I think you should just be able to say whatever the fuck you want to do.

Jack Moran 1:03:47

I think in comedy nothing should be off limits. Uh I agree, man. Comedians I don't say for the most part, I say literally nothing should be off limits.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

But yeah, for the most part, we we kind of I mean you saw one one of our things, but we were envelope pushers. Yeah, that's the way it should be fun with it, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

The audience at the end of the day is the gatekeeper, right? Like, that's you know, yeah, critics. The movie's not critic-proof.

Jack Moran 1:04:15

Like, you know, but the best is when you kind of cringe and you're like, Yeah, you really just say that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

At a particular moment you might in this movie, you might cringe. Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

Yeah, there's definitely a moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Um, but yeah, and we're so I we obviously you could only hope that somebody likes the brand that you put out as a group, and we just want to do it on repeat. Like, just make silly comedies for the sake of making comedies. Not like there's no message, there's no anything. It's just let's laugh again at stupid shit. Because I think everyone's super sensitive and delicate. And I think it's more I think it's more of a bonding experience when you know we all laugh together about this stupid shit. That's when you bond.

Jack Moran 1:04:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Not by being defensive. Um, so hopefully this movie does that. Like we're excited to make another one just like it.

Jack Moran 1:04:58

Well, I'm fired up to see it.

unknown 1:05:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Thanks, man.

Jack Moran 1:05:01

Well, I appreciate you guys coming out. It's been awesome. If uh people want to get in touch with you or see more of your stuff, where where can they find you? Nowhere. We are away, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

Traceable. We have no footprint. We're gonna quit and go home now. Um you can go to bigsmiths.com. Or is it big smiths?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

I was I wasn't even joking. We there's no way to find us right now. Big Smiths at Jeff Howard. At just Jeff Howard is my my Instagram. Uh but as far as our company, it's Big Smiths Entertainment. Big Smiths Entertainment, yeah. Yeah, uh B-I-G-S-M-I-T-S-N-T.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:37

I don't really do social media, but you can just find me at Bj Bales. B-E-E-J-A-Y. So can you just do it now? Put this like below our shit.

Jack Moran 1:05:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:46

Wherever my hand is in the in post. Yep, we'll put it right there.

Jack Moran 1:05:51

Any bars you guys like to hang out at that we can, you know, maybe people can find you there?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

I'm a father uh to an eight-month-old baby and a 10-year-old. Uh the only bar. I'm having our Snickers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

I get shit faced every night. I don't drink either, so like we don't really go to bars too much. Okay. Not at all.

Jack Moran 1:06:10

So you're never gonna find them, you're never gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

You'll never see us, you'll never find us. This is gonna be the last thing we ever do.

Jack Moran 1:06:19

Mic drop.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

Yeah, yeah. Um, I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

I mean we But look for Suburban Psycho. Look for Suburban Psycho, yeah. Yeah, it's coming out. Hopefully in the fall. That's what I want to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Should we start going to bar like what what what bars should we start going to?

Jack Moran 1:06:31

I don't drink either, so I could have black, man. All right. Yeah. Well come to our networking events at the merchant. At the merchant. I can do that, man. I already heard about the events. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Yeah, yeah. Um no, I appreciate you having us on, man. This is fine. Yeah, man. This is fun. Yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate you guys coming out.